Real Estate Center Capstone Seminar
(LND 600)(LND 601)

Professor Andrew Berman

The CRES Capstone Seminar being offered in Fall 2012 focuses on Real Estate Transactional Skills. In this course we will focus on key skills and competencies of transactional lawyers, taught in the context of a real estate transaction. Importantly, you will mostly learn not through lecture or discussion but by “doing” in various simulated situations. The skills that we will mainly focus on are interviewing, counseling, negotiation, contract drafting, legal research and preparation of a research memo, oral presentations, and the like. These will also provide opportunity for you to develop and refine competencies such as written and oral communication, organization, problem solving, creativity, teamwork, “client” relations, legal analysis, dedication and effort, giving/taking feedback, and some others. We will learn a little substantive law along the way, but that is not our focus—actually, I am counting on the Real Estate Transactions and Finance course which is a pre-requisite to provide substantive background (though I will fill in as necessary).

In addition, you will be working collaboratively with other students. Also, many of the simulations are based on real world issues that confront practicing real estate attorneys, and there will be an opportunity to present some of your work publicly. This course is also designated as a Practice Based Learning (PBL) course.